


The Man I Could Be

by AlexBonielIo



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Past Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Ray and Mick talk about Leonard, emotional talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 08:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexBonielIo/pseuds/AlexBonielIo





	

Midnight on the Waverider after stopping the Legion of Doom would find Ray Palmer sitting in the kitchen, nursing a beer that he didn't intend to finish and a bowl of overly sugary cereal that didn't do much to sate his hunger. So it was probably a good thing that he wasn't really overly hungry. He just couldn't sleep. 

Something about their victory over the Legion didn't sit right. He'd died, apparently. At least, a future version of himself had died. He, clearly, was still alive, or he'd be unable to indulge in alcohol and sugary food. But the future version of himself had been killed, and it wasn't sitting well with him. He supposed that was just an effect of dying. Sort of dying, anyway. It was all too confusing.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping, Haircut?"

The deep rumble of a voice probably should have startled Ray out of his thoughts, but it didn't. He'd become so familiar with the rough growl of a voice that belonged to Mick Rory that it didn't do much to him now. It offered him comfort when he was in dark places in his mind, because despite it all, he trusted Mick Rory. It probably should have been unnerving that he found comfort in Mick, but it wasn't.

"Shouldn't you?" came Ray's response, his fingers wrapping around the beer bottle on the table in front of him and bringing it to his lips. He took a sip and swallowed the liquid down, watching Rory grab a beer for himself.

"Can't sleep," Mick responded gruffly, twisting the cap off of his bottle and tossing it aside. He didn't say anything for a long moment, and neither did Ray, just continuing to watch as Mick downed over half the bottle in one drink. "Dropped Snart off back in his timeline. Head's kinda screwed up. I know it's gonna get him killed, but it also makes him better than what he, what that version of him is."

"Ah. Understandable," Ray answered with a little nod. He probably should have suspected that it had something to do with Snart. With Mick, it almost always did.

"Why are you still awake so late?"

"Thinking. As usual." Ray sighed and finished off the last of the liquid in the bottle he had been nursing, setting it back on the table. "I died. At least... the future version of me died. And none of the team seemed... concerned."

"That ain't true," Mick remarked. "They'd miss you if you died. We all would. Your hopeless optimism, while annoying, is... refreshing. They need you."

Ray tried to ignore the heat in his face from the offhanded compliment. Mick had a way of doing that, making someone feel good about themselves when they didn't really want to, and he didn't even mean to do it. "They need the suit, you mean," Ray replied offhandedly, retrieving another beer with a small sigh. That was his insecurity, coming back to bite him in the ass again.

"They don't care about the damn suit," Mick snorted, shaking his head. "Any dumbass could put on a suit and go out there and fight. You can't tell me that Snart wouldn't take a suit like that and use it for all the wrong reasons. It's because it's you in the suit that makes it important at all. Doin' the right thing, helpin' people. That's what makes you a hero, that pure heart of yours. The suit just makes it so you don't get yourself killed so damn easy."

Ray was stunned into silence, not sure what to say in response to Mick's sudden speech. It wasn't often that Mick gave a speech like that, so when he did, it obviously met something. Ray ran a hand through his already messy hair, exhaling a small, breath of a laugh.

"Wow. Um. Thanks."

Mick grunted a response instead of answering, dropping into the empty chair next to Ray and sipping absently at his beer. Ray watched his profile for a moment, his eyes scanning over the man's face. It was expressionless, as it usually was. But Ray had watched Snart shoot a large shard of ice into Mick's heart-- future Mick's heart, a different Mick-- and it wasn't something so easily handled. It prompted him to say something that had been on his mind, something that future Nate had mentioned to him.

"So, um. Nate told me that the future version of you, in the future that the Legion had the Spear, you... betrayed the team and gave it to them," Ray began slowly, and Mick grunted again, not bothering with a response. "And if that's true, I want to say... I'm sorry."

That startled Mick into an actual response, his eyes snapping over to Ray's face. "What are you talking about, Haircut?"

"If there was a future where you betrayed us for Snart, that... that probably came down to us. Because we, the team, I mean, we don't treat you like a member of the team. We don't trust you, we don't treat you like a human, and that's a mistake that we shouldn't be making. Really, at least for me, it's a, um... a security issue, I think. The thing is, when someone like me or Stein, when we're the experts in our fields, we tend to ignore whatever you say, because we think there needs to be some fantastic scientific explanation. And then you, you come along with the simplest answer, and we don't want to accept that that answer could be the right one, because you're..."

"Because I'm stupid," Mick stated simply.

"You're not, actually, and that's the thing. We want you to be, it makes us feel better about ourselves, but the truth is, you are smart. You're really smart, and I can't count the number of times you've kept this team alive, even if we didn't deserve to have you on our side. So if there's a version of the future that you betrayed us for Snart, I can't blame you for doing it, and I just want to say I'm sorry that we don't treat you like you belong here."

Mick was silent for so long once Ray had finished speaking that Ray thought he wasn't going to answer. And then the criminal sighed, a short, sharp exhale of breath.

"You know, you remind me of him a little. Snart. I mean, he was a cold-hearted bastard and he didn't really care about anyone but himself. But in the ways that mattered, you know. You're like him. Loyal to a fault, even to someone like me. He always made excuses for me, Leonard did, for how to keep me around when I didn't deserve to be kept around. I was nothing to the rest of the world, a killer at fifteen, you know? But he didn't care. I was... something to him. He trusted me with Lisa. He never trusted anyone with Lisa, she was his everything. And he trusted me to keep them both safe. Didn't matter how often I fucked up. He made excuses for me. You're loyal like that, keeping people close, even if you shouldn't. Sure, you got ten times the heart that he did, but I think that's because his old man beat his outta him so young."

Ray blinked and sighed, something curling in his stomach that he didn't quite understand. Something warm and soft, something that felt like home. Like safety. Nothing in him knew what to say to any of this. Did he want to be like Leonard Snart? No, not the bad parts. But the good parts of him? The loyalty, the steadfastness, the way he would give himself up for his team? The part that Mick Rory had loved? That part didn't seem so bad.

"You really cared about him."

"Yeah. I did," Mick answered gruffly. "And you know the thing you had in common that matters most to me?" 

"What's that?"

Mick stood up, setting his empty beer bottle on the table. "You both make me want to be better. Be the man that you think I can be, the man that deserves the faith you have in me."

Ray's heart twisted in his chest. This was-- that was more than he had ever expected to hear from Mick Rory, the feelings that Mick kept bottled up inside all the time. He thought it meant... he didn't know. He knew what he wanted it to mean. Standing slowly, he closed the remaining distance between himself and the crook. 

"You are that man, Mick."

"I'm trying to be," Mick responded, and then--

Ray didn't know who closed the distance between them, but then they were kissing. Mick tasted like beer and chocolate, and the smell of gasoline and smoke filled Ray's nose as their bodies pressed together. Mick was all around him, all-consuming and filling every single one of Ray's senses. Ray pressed closer, his tongue pressing past Mick's lips to taste more of him, his arms sliding around the other's neck to hold them close together. He didn't know what exactly this was, he just knew that he didn't want this to end.

Mick ended it before Ray was ready for it to be over, stepping away from him. "Gonna go to bed, Haircut," he rumbled. "You should, too."

"Right," Ray muttered, dazed, running a hand through his tousled hair. His lips tingled, fire burning in the pit of his stomach. Fuck, he wanted more than that.

Mick started to leave, and then stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, turning back to face Ray with something unreadable on his face. "Or, you could come to my room with me."

Whatever this meant, Ray would think about it in the morning.


End file.
